Glenn Reynolds reminds us that the government response to a disaster—no matter if it is in Haiti or the United States—will never arrive quickly as your own survival supplies. Be prepared.

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Haiti's earthquake has produced extreme devastation, both in the capital city and in the surrounding countryside. The current wave of reporting is examining problems in getting relief to where it's needed, and the tone of the coverage is often hostile: Why are things taking so long?

For starters, Haiti is a poor country. The Port-au-Prince airport has a single runway and not much room on the tarmac. There's room for a single wide-body jet, four narrow-body jets and a few smaller aircraft at any one time. Then the supplies have to be delivered on ground, moving over damaged, often blocked roads under dubious security conditions. When U.S. forces arrived, the entire airport had only one forklift. The seaport, meanwhile, was wrecked by the earthquake, and although repair crews and temporary port structures are on the way, setting them up takes time, too. Aid shipped overland from the Dominican Republic faces an 18-hour drive over miserable roads, made even worse by earthquake damage. In short, the situation in Haiti is a mess.

Surely things would be different if a major disaster struck in the United States. Right?

Not necessarily. Of course, every disaster is different--the problems caused by earthquakes differ from those caused by floods, hurricanes or volcanoes. But while the greater wealth and infrastructure in America is a nice thing, it doesn't mean that disaster relief will necessarily arrive quickly. American cities have better airports and more roads, but those can be damaged too. This was certainly the case with New Orleans and large stretches of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, where roads and railroads were flooded, blocked by fallen trees or rendered impassable by collapsed bridges. Military forces are equipped to cross rivers, repair bridges, and move massive quantities of supplies under difficult conditions, but it takes time to get military engineers together and on the way. Plus, the more people you send in to help, the more of the supplies you're delivering that have to go to support them, as opposed to the people they're supposed to be helping.

After Hurricane Katrina, flood waters, debris and downed bridges were the main logistical impediments. An earthquake could cause even worse infrastructure damage that would hamper relief. If, say, the New Madrid fault in Missouri were to let go with a series of magnitude 8.0 earthquakes, we could see much of the Midwest devastated, with enormous damage to railroads, highways and bridges. (The last such quake, actually a series of three earthquakes, caused damage as far away as Washington, D.C,. and Charleston, S.C., and caused the Mississippi River to actually flow backwards as the newly formed Reelfoot Lake filled. But there weren't many buildings and bridges in the midwest in 1811.) Responding to such damage would strain the resources of the nation, and many communities might go weeks before seeing significant relief. A major California earthquake, an Atlantic Coast tsunami or another major hurricane might also create this kind of widespread devastation.

Which brings us back to a theme Popular Mechanics has been driving home for years: self-reliance. If you're at the scene of a major disaster, it may be a long time before outside help arrives. But one person is sure to be there: you. And nobody cares more about helping you and your family in time of disaster than, well, you. So it makes sense for you to be prepared to take care of yourself--and look out for your neighbors--for some time afterward. That means having adequate stocks of food, water and basic tools on hand. (Experts say that Haitians should have had at least two weeks of food on hand, but of course many Haitians can't afford to keep such reserves. Americans, generally speaking, can.)

Survival gear is important to have ready at home. In particular, water filters and water storage devices are often neglected, but critically important, since clean water is often hard to come by after a disaster. Still, we're not asking that people think of disaster preparedness in terms of acquiring stuff. Having the right gear after a disaster is important, of course, but you should also think in terms of acquiring skills. Fortunately, many of the skills you'll need in the aftermath of a major disaster are the kinds of things that Popular Mechanics readers tend to have--familiarity with basic tools and construction, a can-do mind-set and a willingness to improvise. But you might want to take some advance first-aid or emergency medicine courses, and perhaps broaden your expertise a bit; for instance, if what you know is carpentry, it would help to acquire some basic electrical or plumbing knowledge. Disasters don't respect specialization.

Meanwhile, the folks who are in charge of our infrastructure might want to try a bit more preparation on their own. As I've argued before, critical systems should be engineered for resilience, so that minor failures don't cascade into major ones, and so that failure, when it comes, is graceful rather than abrupt. In addition, stockpiles of food and emergency supplies make sense at the state and federal level, as well as at the individual level. And it might be worth taking a look at the most important local transportation and communications links, and either reinforcing them, or making plans (including spare parts that might be hard to come by after a disaster) for fixing them in a hurry.

We like to think of disasters as unusual and unexpected, but on any sort of long timeline, they're inevitable. An ounce of preparation may not always be better than a pound of cure. But it's certainly more likely to be there when you need it.